ABSTRACT
Nowadays, given the high production volume of industrial and dangerous materials and their impacts on the human society and environment, disposal of waste materials in the environment and finding the best disposal site for industrial and hazardous wastes, as the most significant managerial measure, have become one of the most important and complex decisions in urban management. In order to find a disposal site, analysis of spatial data, laws, and large socioeconomic and environmental criteria is required. Multi-criteria analysis techniques coupled with GIS capabilities can be a good solution for this. Due to numerous industrial units, especially refineries in Bushehr province, it is essential to find a management solution for hazardous wastes of this province. The main objective of this study is to find an optimal location which has the lowest environmental risk and economically favorable. For this purpose, ecological and socioeconomic criteria were identified and normalized by fuzzy method. The weight of the parameters was determined by analytical network process method combined with the weighted linear combination method. In the capability of the area to locate the hazardous waste disposal, the results showed that the highest weight belonged to ecological criteria (61.34%) and land use (0.27), respectively. Also, 6.13% of the province areas are identified with high potentials for disposal of hazardous wastes. The results of this study showed the importance and significant weight of environmental criteria in prioritizing the proposed areas for disposal of this type of waste. Efficiency of the employed models, integrated with GIS and MCDM, was also proven.
Subject(s)
Decision Making , Environmental Monitoring/methods , Hazardous Waste Sites , Hazardous Waste/analysis , Models, Theoretical , Refuse Disposal/methods , Decision Support Techniques , Geographic Information Systems , SoftwareABSTRACT
Environment problems associated with the generation of waste are part of societal changes where households play an important role. These societal changes influence the size, structure and characteristic of given households. For the effective planning of solid-waste handling infrastructure, it is essential to know the quantity of waste generation and its composition. This paper presents the findings of a study carried out in an urban municipal area in Iran to determine the household solid-waste generation rate and waste composition based on field surveys and to determine the related socioeconomic parameters. The dependent variables were waste generation and composition, and independent variables were family size, family employment, age, number of room and education. Over 400 sample households were selected for the study using a stratified random sampling methodology and from five different socioeconomic groups. Waste collected from all groups of households were segregated and weighted. Waste generation rate was 5.4 kg/household/day. Household solid waste comprised of ten categories of wastes and with the largest component (76.9%). The generation and composition of household solid waste were correlated with family size, education level and households income. This paper adequately suggests new insights concerning the role of socioeconomic parameters in affecting the generation of household waste.
